Watching Obama address the nation last night, I found myself thinking that nothing has changed. Obama is still campaigning. He’s still promising broad sweeping generalizations and platitudes, many of which don’t add up. Sure, they sound super, but just like more than doubling the deficit in one week, then saying he will cut it in 4 years, the math just doesn’t work. Obama is promising relatively massive changes to health care and education, among many other things, that cost a great deal of money. The country is deep in recession, and no government is capable of achieving what he is promising without crawling up on the back of a booming economical machine.

In conversations with some last night, I found it incredible that some people had the wide eyed, emotion driven position that he had actually produced and submitted a ‘plan’. I tried to explain that no, he had not. He had simply done what he always does (well, almost always- see the word “crisis” in your dictionary) , and that is sell with his authoritative booming voice, and dour, contemplative and condescending turns of his face from side to side, a plan so huge and wonderful that you just can’t help but walk away feeling like you have just been to Disneyland for the first time.

Let’s forget that he is bumbling through cabinet appointment after cabinet appointment. (Let’s hope that Gary Locke has checked his taxes three times prior to his nomination.) Let’s forget that the nation’s best minds and speech writers can’t get right who actually invented the automobile. (These are the same people that make fun of “Nuc-You-ler”). Let’s forget the broken promises of transparency, bipartisanship, time to review bills before signing. Let ’s forget that the next omnibus budget bill apparently has almost 9000 earmarks in it, even though Obama promised this would not happen. Let’s forget that two of Obama’s own cabinet members are responsible for some of those earmarks.

Let’s forget all of that, and remember the more important issues and facts.

We are in recession. Banks are near collapse, or are collapsing. One of the worlds largest insurance interests (AIG) posted a $60 billion loss in Q4 of last year, right after we pooped $150 billion down the tube to save them. They are now worthless. $150 billion, poof.

Chrysler and GM are on an umbilical cord to Uncle Sam. The housing market is still upside down, and nobody really knows for sure how we are going to cover all of the poison assets which represent sure losses (at least in the short term).

Hundreds of thousands- no, millions- of Americans are now out of work. Annnnnnd, we just spent about $800 billion on a bill that was rushed through, behind closed doors, voted on like there was a fire, with the last vote being cast in the dead of night.

And Obama wants to talk about reforming healthcare, into a nationalized status? We just spent all the money we have, all the money we don’t have, all the money China has loaned, and all the money of the next generation, and Obama wants to talk about numerous costly programs, many of which are a quagmire when it comes to implementing them in an arena dominated by various special interests. In other words, not only will they cost a fortune, they also are a field of political landmines which, even with his majorities in congress, will be very difficult to get through without a great deal of pain.

In spite of that, it’s no wonder that numbers went up after the speech. After all, he was able to snow most of America into thinking he was ready for prime time. Honestly, if you were dumb enough to vote for him, last night was a cakewalk for your incisive intellect.

Hitler could move a crowd too. No, of course, Obama is not Hitler. My point simply is, just because it sounds good, doesn’t mean it IS good. Just because masses of people can find themselves cheering doesn’t mean the proverbial ovens aren’t warming up, this time not to cook people, but rather to cook your political and economic future.

So today at America’s water coolers everywhere, we have people smiling and saying “Wow- yes we can!” But ask them “how?” and you will likely get a blank stare.

And this is what I was tying to express to one wide eyed kool-aid drinker last night. They kept insisting that Obama had iterated a ‘plan’. “No,” I implored “he did not. He has done nothing more than propose goals. Big difference.”

The devil is in the details, I explained to her. “Lewis and Clark saying they will take a trip to the Pacific Ocean is not a plan. It is a goal. A plan talks about food, weather, shelter, ammunition, maps, modes of transportation needed, etc..”

Even were a “plan” to be clear, complete, and submitted, I still would come back to one big obstacle: Money.

Add to everything I said above the fact that we are fighting a war on two fronts, and despite what Obama promised in the previous months, it is doubtful that those price tags will disappear completely in his 4 years in office. Many troops from Iraq will come home, but 17,000 are now heading to Afghanistan, and Obama is not going to make his promise of having all troops out of Iraq in his first 16 months a reality. Some 40,000+ troops will be in Iraq for at least 2 more years.

Obama, as we have seen, is great at making big promises that get those who are not terribly inclined to ask “how, when, what will it cost and do we have the money?” all starry-eyed and weepy. But I am going to tell you what my strong opinion is on about 80% of what Obama is planning or offering as a goal right now…

As one country man said to me once when I asked him how to get somewhere, “Ya can’t get there from here.”

Truth is, under the current circumstances, we do not have the resources to do what Obama wants to do, at least not without putting this country at great risk. And that should make you very, very worried, because he does have one thing he needs to try- a congress full of rabid, left leaning children who have been waiting a loooooooooong time to “get even” and have things their way.

Look for a flurry of attempts to shove their programs down your throat in the next two years. The left knows that in the next election (mid-term, 2010), there is a good chance their numbers will be whittled down, making the current situation very immediate for their agenda. 

If they cannot be stopped, they truly will cripple this country for many, many years to come.

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